A defence lawyer who asked a young woman why she didn't clench her legs together to prevent her father pulling down her pants and having sex with her has been admonished by a Calgary judge, who dismissed a mistrial application Tuesday afternoon.

"You would agree with me then … all you had to do was clench your legs together and your pants would have been unable to move," said defence lawyer Krysia Przepiorka in her cross-examination of the young woman late Monday afternoon.

You know the knee thing could work... for maybe a minute. Those muscles are easily tired.

Not to mention it's those (often weak) muscles against stronger, more utilized arm muscles. Not to mention is those muscles of a woman against the muscles of a man. Not to mention this was the woman's FATHER who she lived with and had other access to her when she was less able (or perhaps more tired) of pressing her knees together.

Often it seems the point of this "argument" is to suggest the victim must have wanted the sexual act or else they would have tried harder to prevent it. Suggesting that this girl felt that way about a sexual act with her father gives the statement another layer of vileness.

Often it seems the point of this "argument" is to suggest the victim must have wanted the sexual act or else they would have tried harder to prevent it. Suggesting that this girl felt that way about a sexual act with her father gives the statement another layer of vileness.

Its a silly argument as you allude to, but I got to wonder why a defense lawyer would bother with it. No judge in his right mind would accept such an argument. I suppose though that a sexist male jury member might still believe in it.

Really though, this defense should be tossed in the ash heap of bad arguments that should result in your being laughed out of court.

Too many people still believe that kind of crap, unfortunately. It's not a "real" rape unless it meets a bunch of criteria that almost never happen: until then, she was just asking for, wasn't her fault, he was a man who can't be expected to help himself, and so on.

Too many people still believe that kind of crap, unfortunately. It's not a "real" rape unless it meets a bunch of criteria that almost never happen: until then, she was just asking for, wasn't her fault, he was a man who can't be expected to help himself, and so on.

Its a silly argument as you allude to, but I got to wonder why a defense lawyer would bother with it. No judge in his right mind would accept such an argument.

Because people on the jury will still remember it, judge instructions to the contrary. All you need to do is introduce reasonable doubt in one member of the jury. And if it makes her less likely to continue the trial or commit to a second trial, that's good too.

"You would agree with me then … all you had to do was clench your legs together and your pants would have been unable to move," said defence lawyer Krysia Przepiorka in her cross-examination of the young woman late Monday afternoon.

And why is there no outrage over the gender of the person making the statement? I can't believe I'm the first person to notice that a WOMAN is the source of this antiquated sexist drivel.

Now, I'm sure if a man had said something similar, there would be nothing but howls of outrage about the "Neanderthal" or "caveman" mentality coming from the guy; in fact, we've seen plenty of cases in the past couple of years where men (including judges) have made similarly stupid sexist comments and they've been raked over the proverbial coals (the judges routinely faced cries of "impeach the bastard") but a "mere" woman says something like this, and apparently it gets a pass.

And why is there no outrage over the gender of the person making the statement?

The statement is outrageous no matter what the gender is of the person who makes it.

Are you surprised that there are women who believe this sort of nonsense? Of course there are. There are plenty of people -- of all genders -- who want to believe that they, personally, could never be raped -- and who therefore want to believe that there are surefire and easy ways to prevent it. (Although whether Przepiorka actually believes it, or only believes the argument will either cause the jury to disbelieve the accuser or will rattle the accuser to the point at which the rest of her testimony sounds defensive and/or confused, I have no idea.)

Or do you just think that we should somehow think the statement is even worse coming from a woman than from a man? Why would it be?